Marquette rallies to beat Mountaineers

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Morgantown, WV (Sports Network) - Jae Crowder scored a game-high 26 points to
lead No. 10 Marquette to a 61-60 comeback win over West Virginia at WVU
Coliseum on Friday.

"I thought it was a dog fight," said Marquette head coach Buzz Williams. "I
told our guys before the game - it wouldn't be a play, it wouldn't be a stat,
it would be a fight from the beginning to the end."

Vander Blue and Darius Johnson-Odom added 10 and nine points, respectively,
for the Golden Eagles (24-5, 13-3 Big East), who won for the first time in
five tries in Morgantown.

Johnson-Odom, the team's leading scorer, and Blue were both suspended for the
first half along with Junior Cadougan for an undisclosed violation of team
rules. A fourth player, Todd Mayo, played in the first half, but missed the
second for the same infraction.

Darryl Bryant paced West Virginia (17-12, 7-9) with 25 points and Kevin Jones
chipped in 12 points and six rebounds. The Mountaineers have now lost four of
their last five contests.

Johnson-Odom used his first bucket of the game to pull the Golden Eagles
within five, then added a dunk off of an offensive rebound and a three-pointer
on consecutive possessions to cut the deficit to 45-42 with 8:36 left in the
game.

Marquette led by as many as five after a Crowder layup made it 58-53, but
Dominique Rutledge corralled an offensive rebound and finished the layup to
make it a 58-56 margin with 2:03 to play.

The team's then exchanged free throws and, after Johnson-Odom missed a layup,
Keaton Miles finished a layup on the other end to make it a 61-60 contest with
15.1 seconds left.

Marquette got two at the line but Cadougan missed both of his attempts giving
West Virginia the ball with 6.6 seconds after they advanced it to halfcourt
and took a timeout.

Bryant caught the inbounds bounce in the backcourt and drove hard to the right
side. Crowder stepped up to defend, forcing Bryant's floater to go long and
Marquette came down with the rebound to seal West Virginia's fate.

"This one is really easy to say why now: He didn't play three of his starters
in the first half and he played them in the second half," said Huggins about
the disparity between the first and second half of the game.

West Virginia got back-to-back triples from Bryant to cap an 11-2 spurt that
gave the home team a 25-17 advantage with just under four minutes left until
halftime.

The Mountaineers took advantage of the short-handed Golden Eagles on the
glass, doubling the visitors in first half rebounds (22-11), which turned into
eight second chance points for West Virginia as it took a 32-21 halftime edge.

Game Notes

Marquette's 13 Big East wins marks the most Big East wins ever for the team
since it became a member prior to the 2005-06 season...Both teams struggled
from long range as the Golden Eagles shot 3-of-16, while the Mountaineers
boasted a 5-of-20 mark from three-point range.